


When I Wake Up

by AEMiz



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Nightmares, cute girls cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7223305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AEMiz/pseuds/AEMiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke has a nightmare. Isabela is there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Wake Up

The pressure against her chest was squashing the breath out of her. Stars popped across her vision as she fought to move, to breathe, to something. She was pinned. She couldn’t fight. Fire surrounded her. Screams echoed in her ears—Carver’s. Her mother’s. Her lover’s. Her own.

Lightning flashed around her. Her power of movement was restored.

Steph Hawke sat bolt upright in her bed, one hand clutching at her chest as she greedily sucked air into her lungs.

For a few moments, she didn’t quite remember where she was. She shoved her sweat-slicked blonde hair out of her face as she scanned the room.

Wooden floors and walls. The scent of pitch. A soft bed with silky sheets. The gentle rolling and bobbing of the ship on the ocean. Hawke groped blindly next to her until her hand landed on a body sprawled out on the bed next to her.

“Hawke?” Isabela’s sleep-slurred voice sounded from under the blankets.

Hawke didn’t speak—couldn’t speak. She flailed for Isabela’s hand. The pirate, dexterous even in her state of quasi-sleep caught Hawke’s hand and brought it to her lips.

Hawke felt her heart rate even out at the contact.

“Isabela?” she tested her voice.

Isabela hummed in acknowledgement.

“Isabela,” Hawke repeated.

Movement next to her shifted the mattress. Isabela rose from the pile of sheets, dark waves of her hair spilling over her shoulders not quite covering her bare chest.

Hawke buried both of her hands in Isabela’s hair and pressed her face against the pirate’s neck. Isabela made a noise of surprise. Hawke could feel the wary tension winding its way through Isabela’s muscles, but the pirate wrapped her arms around Hawke’s waist even so.

“What? What is this?” Isabela asked as she rubbed circles along Hawke’s spine.

Hawke took a shaky breath. She tilted her face towards Isabela, intending to recount her dream.

Moonlight splashed through the window, painting Isabela in pale light, catching the amber in her eyes and making it almost luminescent.

The words caught in Hawke’s throat. Flashes of fire and pain-filled screams flooded her mind. She pressed her face against Isabela’s warm skin once more.

Understanding seemed to hit Isabela all at once. The tension that had filled her body ebbed and she dropped a kiss on Hawke’s shoulder.

“Dreams again?” she asked, her voice whisper-soft. Hawke nodded.

“Kirkwall?”

“Don’t know,” Hawke said. Her voice was thick. She pulled slightly away from Isabela—not so far that she could no longer touch her—and wiped at her face with one hand. Moisture had gathered around her eyes. “There was fire. And screaming. I could see people, hear people, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help.”

Isabela clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Ah, my sweet thing,” the pirate sighed. “Always wanting to save everyone.”

“Too bad I’ve always been so piss poor at it,” Hawke hiccupped.

“That’s not true,” Isabela said. “You know that’s not true.”

“My family—“

“What happened to your family isn’t your fault,” Isabela insisted, an unusual sharpness in her voice.

Hawke looked away, shoulders slumped.

Isabela sighed again. She wrapped her arms around Hawke and leaned back, pulling the woman back onto the bed with her. Hawke tucked her head against Isabela’s chest, the fingers of one hand tracing nonsense patterns on the pirate’s stomach.

“You always want to stop all the bad things from happening,” Isabela said. “You want everyone safe and everyone happy.”

“Is that such a bad goal?”

“No,” Isabela admitted. “It’s just impossible.”

Hawke shifted uncomfortably. Isabela moved so that Hawke was meeting her eyes.

“Every tragedy isn’t your fault,” Isabela said simply. “Every bad thing that happens isn’t because you didn’t do something to stop it. You do your best; that’s all you can do. And your best has saved people.”

Hawke gave a watery chuckle. “Like you?” The press of Isabela’s lips against her own served as Hawke’s answer.

Isabela traced a hand along Hawke’s jaw. The action made a smile twitch across the champion’s lips.

“Go back to sleep?” Isabela suggested.

Hawke curled herself against Isabela’s body. “You’ll be here if I wake up again?”

Isabela’s laugh was quiet enough that Hawke felt it more than heard it. “Of course, sweet thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I have been in a weird space this week. I've felt angry and unsafe, and I've felt like my identity as a queer woman has been under threat. I figured other people had been feeling that way, too, so I wrote a thing with Hawke and Isabela where Hawke is scared and she's able to find at least a little comfort with the woman she loves. It made me feel better. Maybe it'll make someone else feel better, too.


End file.
